Edvard August Vainio

Edvard August Vainio
Head shot of Edvard August Vainio
Vainio in 1924 at age 71
Born
Edvard Lang

(1853-08-05)5 August 1853
Died14 May 1929(1929-05-14) (aged 75)
Turku, Finland
NationalityFinnish
Alma materUniversity of Helsinki
Scientific career
FieldsLichenology
InstitutionsUniversity of Helsinki; University of Turku
Author abbrev. (botany)Vain.[1]

Edvard August Vainio (born Edvard Lang;[note 1] 5 August 1853 – 14 May 1929) was a Finnish lichenologist. His early works on the lichens of Lapland, his three-volume monograph on the lichen genus Cladonia, and, in particular, his study of the classification and form and structure of lichens in Brazil, made Vainio renowned internationally in the field of lichenology.

Young Vainio's friendship with university student Johan Petter Norrlin, who was nearly eleven years older, helped him develop an impressive knowledge of the local cryptogams (ferns, mosses, algae, and fungi, including lichens) and afforded him ample opportunity to hone his collection and identification techniques at an early age. It was through this association that Vainio met Norrlin's teacher, the prominent lichenologist William Nylander, who supported his early botanical efforts. Vainio's earliest works dealt with phytogeography—elucidating and enumerating the local flora—and are considered the earliest publications on phytogeography in the Finnish language. In these early publications he demonstrated an attention to detail and thoroughness that would become characteristic of his later work.

After graduating from the University of Helsinki in 1880, Vainio became a docent, meaning he was qualified to teach academically, but without a regular salary. Despite his scientific successes and the international recognition he gained through his research, he never obtained a permanent position in this university. This was a result, he said, of his intense Finnish nationalism and desire to promote the use of the Finnish language in academia during a time of language strife, when Latin dominated the scientific literature, and Swedish was the predominant language of administration and education. Disillusioned with his prospects for permanent academic employment, and faced with the reality of having to provide for his family, he was obliged to accept a position with the Russian censorship authority, which led to his ostracism by the Finnish scientific community.

Vainio described about 1900 new species, and published more than 100 scientific works. He made significant scientific collections of lichens, and, as a result of his many years of work as herbarium curator at both the University of Helsinki, and later the University of Turku, he catalogued and processed other collections from all over the world, including the Arctic and Antarctica. Because of the significance of his works on lichens in the tropics and other locales, he has been called the Father of Brazilian lichenology and the Grand Old Man of lichenology.

  1. ^ "Vainio, Edvard (Edward) August (1853–1929)". International Plant Names Index. Archived from the original on 16 July 2020. Retrieved 15 July 2020.
  2. ^ Vitikainen 1998, p. 16.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Taxonomic literature was invoked but never defined (see the help page).


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